Final Frontier launches FOREVER BOLD Campaign for CLIO Awards 2024

A new edition of the CLIO Awards 2024, one of the world's most relevant international Advertising awards - has been celebrated in the bustling heart of NYC. Since 1959, CLIO Awards have been known for, once a year, becoming the place, the moment: honouring creative excellence in advertising, communications and marketing, and setting a spotlight for the top-notch work on a global scale.

The campaign FOREVER BOLD - with a concept developed in-house and under the vision of creative director Ralph Karam - is composed of the visual identity for the venue’s communication and the production of an animated multi-style Film.

As their well-known modus operandi Final Frontier loves curating films and campaigns with multiple styles. So, they did it again, this time setting up a powerful mix of directorial talent, a special line-up of established names and up-and-coming ones too, from all over the globe conformed by Pablo Alfieri-Chroma Bureau, Andrea Devia-Nuño, Yukai Du, Juan Behrens, Lobster, Bernardo Henning, Daniel Semanas, Verso Studio & Dirty Work. 

Each artist infused the film working on its own visual language, resulting in a collective-made, multi-style, eclectic extravaganza, a perfect resource for portraying the essence of the different stages of the creative process. From 3D CGi, to 2D traditional cell animation, the film identity appears as a chameleonic one, visually diverse and always evolving, maybe like our world nowadays.

For the sound design Final Frontier partnered with Antfood, who triggered the emotional spectrum targeted, enhancing the campaign’s message and taking the film to new heights.

Developed by creative directors Claus Cibils, Dauquen Chabeldin, and Diego Rojas, FOREVER BOLD works not just as a concept, it is a statement and a commitment to the ideas, creators, and to the industry. 

FOREVER BOLD concept was inspired by the writing of The MANIFESTO permeating with its conceptual force all through the campaign. 

Dauquen Chabeldin, campaign's creative director, said, “The idea started from the fact that for the festival, bold is not a trend, it cannot be, bold it's forever. Because of its DNA, because the winning ideas will be written down. Because the Clios are, were and will be a creative and industry reference. And that will never change. FOREVER BOLD is a path, being FOREVER BOLD proof that you achieved it, a kind of diamond shining for a path taken.”

According to Claus Cibils, Final Frontier's creative director, “CLIOs' FOREVER BOLD permeates everything: it is about pushing for an idea to become a concept, a campaign, and transmuting it into something else, something greater. A multidisciplinary notion that calls for creatives to fight for their ideas, transform and develop them until they become FOREVER BOLD.”

“As the Manifesto written for the campaign puts it, It's about living in that moment forever by breaking through and not standing still. Trend-wise, bold is purposefully malleable. FOREVER BOLD means never settling, always striving for what makes us tick. By resilience and reconstruction, we are FOREVER BOLD.”

Ralph Karam, Final Frontier’s co-founder and creative director, “The film reflects on the creative process and how it works for us, from the genesis of a raw stone as an idea, and its multiple potentialities to the final and bold idea. Then the process begins: we start 'touching' the ideas, putting them to the test, rejecting them, reshaping them, and eventually becoming intertwined with them; we change alongside the ideas. After that comes the more interesting part - the experimentation - which, in our case, always happens collectively, as a team with different visions, backgrounds, and perspectives. The concept of the film it's also a very good visual and sensory metaphor for how our creative process unfolds: a polished diamond that emerges from the raw stone.”

Closing and about the excitement of working for the CLIOs, Gus Karam, Final Frontier’s co-founder and executive producer said, “Working across the world has been part of what we have done since our first year, but NYC is always an exciting stage to be on. It's a city that we love and that has been part of our story since we started working in creativity. At the end of last year, we had the pleasure of being at 7th and 3rd Street with a Naked Eye billboard featuring Little Simz for the Knu Stack campaign for Vans. Now, we’re back again at Gotham Hall with CLIO. We hope to continue putting our work in this never-stop city, just like ourselves.”

FOREVER BOLD  | The Film

The film serves as a metaphor for the creative process, beginning with the initial spark of an idea when one is unsure of what to create but catches a glimpse of something intriguing. It starts with the genesis of an idea, still raw and uncertain. Notably, in the opening scene, there is no manipulation of the idea; there is only a fleeting glimpse of its essence and the potential possibilities it holds.

In the subsequent scene, we witness the manipulation and transformation of the idea, symbolising the moment when the creative mind becomes intertwined with the creative process itself. 

The Yukai’s scene triggers the most interesting moment of conceptualisation - experimentation inherent in the creative process, as well as the journey through multiple “portals” until the final result is achieved. 

Metaphors abound throughout the film, with the rustic stone being likened to an idea in its raw form, gradually shaped and refined into a polished diamond, a constant icon throughout the narrative, representing the culmination of the creative process. A film that stands as the FOREVER BOLD  idea, one that CLIO has recognised and elevated to the pantheon of creativity.